title: Lipomatous metaplasia identified in rabbits with reperfused myocardial infarction by 3.0 T magnetic resonance imaging and histopathology.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Cardiac lipomatous metaplasia (LM) occurs in patients with chronic ischemic heart disease and heart failure with unclear mechanisms. We studied coronary occlusion/reperfusion-induced myocardial infarction (MI) in rabbits during a 9-months follow-up using 3.0 T magnetic resonance scanner, and confirmed the presence of MI in acute phase and LM in chronic phase using histopathology.
  
  
  METHODS
  MI was surgically induced in 10 rabbits by 90-min coronary artery occlusion and reperfusion. Forty-eight hours later, multiparametric cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (cMRI) was performed at a 3.0 T clinical scanner for MI diagnosis and cardiac function analysis. Afterwards, seven rabbits were scarified for histochemical staining with triphenyltetrazolium chloride (TTC), and hematoxylin-eosin (HE), and 3 were scanned with cMRI at 2 days, 2 weeks, 2 months and 9 months for longitudinal observations of morphological and functional changes, and the fate of the animals. Post-mortem TTC, HE and Masson's trichrome (MTC) were studied for chronic stage of MI.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The size of acute MI correlated well between cMRI and TTC staining (r(2)=0.83). Global cardiac morphology-function analysis showed significant correlation between increasing acute MI size and decreasing ejection fraction (p<0.001). During 9 months, cMRI documented evolving morphological and functional changes from acute MI to chronic scar transformation and fat deposition with a definite diagnosis of LM established by histopathology.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Acute MI and chronic LM were induced in rabbits and monitored with 3.0 T MRI. Studies on this platform may help investigate the mechanisms and therapeutic interventions for LM.
authors.forename: Yuanbo
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.forename: Huaijun
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Marlein Miranda
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Cona
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.forename: Junjie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bogaert
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Janssens
authors.forename: Raymond
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Oyen
authors.forename: Yicheng
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ni
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D008679:Metaplasia; D009203:Myocardial Infarction / Q000473:pathology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D015428:Myocardial Reperfusion Injury / Q000473:pathology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D009206:Myocardium / Q000473:pathology*; D011817:Rabbits; D013318:Stroke Volume